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Poetry
"Poetry" is the third chapter of Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger. Synopsis Mrs. Jewls has the class write poems about their favorite colors, but Allison struggles to rhyme anything with "purple." Plot This chapter opens with Mrs. Jewls explaining to the class that everyone is going to pick a color and write a poem about it. Joy is confused, and Mrs. Jewls gives her an example of a poem about the color brown. Joy asks Mrs. Jewls to repeat it a little slower, and she does. Rondi is excited to do purple, but Allison wants purple instead. Rondi says that more than two people can do the same color, but knowing Allison always gets her way, switches to blue instead. Joe has trouble rhyming anything with red, and asks Mrs. Jewls for advice, and Mrs. Jewls suggests words that end with "e-d." Joe, understanding what to do, gets back to work. Rondi thinks of words that rhyme with blue, and asks Mrs. Jewls about several different words, all of which work. She is happy, because lots of words rhyme with blue. Allison is upset, because nothing rhymes with purple. She tries going through the alphabet, until she can find anything that rhymes, but nothing quite works. However, after making a big stink over it with Rondi, she feels like she can't change. Rondi gets more ideas of words that rhyme with blue, but struggles to pick a topic for her poem, because there's so many. Dana walks to Mrs. Jewls, asking for something that rhymes with pink. Mrs. Jewls assures she'll think of something, but Dana remarks that she can't do it, while haplessly rhyming with pink several times in her sentence. She goes back to her desk, and her pen runs out of ink. John offers her his pen, but then cracks up by stating she can't have it because he's already using it. Allison and Rondi continue to work on their poems, until the end of the day, when they are all turned in. Kathy writes a poem about the color yellow, talking about her sickness and throwing up. Joy writes a poem about brown, which is really just Mrs. Jewls's example poem. Stephen's poem is about the color green, specifically his hair turning green after swimming in a pool full of chlorine. Joe's poem is about firemen saving a screaming baby in a red firetruck, but none of the words he picked that end in "e-d" rhyme with "red." Dana's poem, about her favorite color, simply takes time to insult John, calling him a ratfink, while Allison writes a poem about getting a crying baby to stop by having him burp, rhyming purple with "burp'll." Rondi has the title of her poem about blue, but absolutely nothing else. Characters *Mrs. Jewls *Joy *Rondi *Allison *Joe *Dana *John *Kathy *Stephen Trivia *Joy stealing Mrs. Jewls's poem is a reference to her usual kleptomaniac behavior, also seen in "Joy," "The Best Part," and "Lost and Found." Gallery Poetry 1995.jpg|Joel Schick illustration Poetry 2003.jpg|Adam McCauley illustration Poetry Illustration.jpg|Peter Allen illustration Category:Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger chapters Category:Book chapters